Event #13: $1,500 Razz

Rep Porter is the newest member of poker’s highly-exclusive three gold bracelet club.

The good-natured poker pro from Woodinville, WA won the $1,500 buy-in Seven-Card Razz tournament, which was played over three days and nights at the Rio in Las Vegas, June 9-11.  Porter collected $142,624 in prize money.  This marked his third time to win a gold bracelet following previous victories in 2008 and 2011.  His previous wins came for Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em and Seven-Card Razz.  Hence, he’s one of a small number of players with multiple wins in this unique form of lowball poker.  Porter can also play other forms of poker well, too – as evidenced by his 12th-place finish in the 2013 WSOP Main Event Championship.

Porter won his victory by prevailing at one of the toughest final tables of the 2016 series, to date.  The third and final day included several notable names, none bigger than Daniel Negreanu, who ended up busting out in fourth place.  Other former gold bracelet winners who made the top eight included – Brendan Taylor., Shaun Deeb, Michael Gathy (and Porter). 

In fact, the heads-up showdown was a battle between a couple of two-time gold bracelet winners who put up a great Saturday show.  With the crowd evenly divided in terms of allegiances, the match took on a sporting atmosphere, atypical of the usual Razz crowd.  Both players were aiming for what would have been their third WSOP win.  The final moment of triumph came when Porter scooped the final pot of the tournament after a lengthy and stubborn final stand versus Michael Gathy, from Belgium, who finished as the runner up.

Porter was aided by his table top lucky charm named “Quicksilver.”  He’s brought it out during each of his three WSOP victories.  Porter explained that back in 2008 when he was about to leave him to come to the WSOP, his daughter handed him her favorite toy because she thought it might bring him good luck.  A week later, Porter won his first WSOP victory.  A few years later, Quicksilver once again delivered.  On this night, the white horse which has become a treasures keepsake was with Porter every step of the way.

This tourney attracted 461 entries which created a prize pool totaling $622,350.  The top 70 finishers collected prize money.  Registration numbers were about the same as last year’s tourney, which drew 462 entrants.

Razz is an unusual poker game in which the worst five-card hand wins.  The object of the game is to get dealt nothing – as in no pairs, nor high cards.  As Paul Newman once said in the movie Cool Hand Luke, “sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand.”

“A lot of people think Razz is a stone luck game, but I think it takes lots of skill,” Porter said.  “It feels good to win the same tournament again.  It kind of validates that you’re good at that game.”

Aside from the winner, here’s a brief report of the other top finishers who made the final table:

Second Place:  Michael Gathy, from Brussels, Belgium took $88,146 as his consolation prize.  He had the chip lead at one point during the final table.  However, Rep Porter seized the advantage as play became shorter handed and Gathy was forced to conceded defeat as Porter enjoyed a flurry of low cards, which is a favorable spot in Razz.  Gathy’s gold bracelets were won in No-Limit Hold’em events played in 2012 and 2013.

Third Place:  Alexey Makarov, from Russia, played tough but ended up going out in third place.  He earned $60,309, which was the biggest prize he’s collected at the WSOP in 9 in-the-money finishes he’s posted.

Fourth Place:  Daniel Negreanu is arguably the most famous poker player in the world at the moment.  Any public appearance by “Kid Poker” is sure to attract mobs of fans and followers.  Negreanu’s presence certainly added some electricity to what might otherwise have been a more routine tournament at the series.  However, after taking the chip lead for a time, Negreanu wasn’t able to maintain his momentum.  Negreanu, a six-time gold bracelet winner with more than $15 million in WSOP earnings added $42,030 to his cash winnings.

Fifth Place:  Brendan Taylor, from Pasadena, CA was short-stacked during much of the final day, but still managed to inch his way up into fifth place.  He won his gold bracelet in 2011.  Taylor now has 17 cashes on his resume.  This deep run paid $29,846.

Sixth Place:  Valentin Vornicu, from San Diego, CA went out in sixth place.  He’s been grinding on the WSOP Circuit for several years and currently owns eight gold rings – one behind the all-time leader.  Vornicu has yet to win a gold bracelet, but does have nine cashes.  His take from this tournament amounted to $21,604.

Seventh Place:  Daniel Weinman, from Atlanta, GA became one of the first players to cash four times at this year’s series.  This was the first final table appearance of the four, which paid out $15,945.

Eighth Place:  Shaun Deeb, from Las Vegas, NV won last year’s $10K Pot-Limit Omaha championship.  However, he couldn’t survive an early bust out.  Deeb, in his 31st cash at the WSOP, collected $12,006.

This was the 13th event on this year’s schedule, which includes 69 gold bracelet events.